The requirements for starting an e-commerce business are numerous. Raising capital is one of the most important concerns for any startup business, including an e-commerce business. In the case of online e-commerce businesses, which are typically individual-owned, the requirements extend beyond merely obtaining capital. The business may further require technology skills to host a website, internet advertising and marketing skills to sustain business growth, logistics and fulfillment skills to serve customer needs, etc. Websites such as eBay® serve as facilitators in this respect by providing for a nominal fee the necessary software and payment infrastructure, customer review/feedback infrastructure, and potential customer base to aspiring e-commerce entrepreneurs. However, there are certain critical aspects of business operations that these websites fail to provide such as shown in Table 1.
TABLE 1Unmet Requirements to Initiate and Operate an Online Business1.A business plan that defines the products and/or services to be sold;existing websites do not provide business plans to their subscribers(who are interested in investing but not sure what to sell)2.Capital for procuring products and/or developing services to besold; existing websites do not provide capital to implement businessplans of their subscribers (who know what to sell but lack capital)3.E-commerce business know-how including experience and skill indescribing and listing the products, receiving and fulfilling orders,providing customer service, etc.; existing websites do not provideonline business know-how to subscribers (who do not know howto sell)4.Identification and acquisition of customer base for a given productprior to launching the business and getting market noticiability; whileexisting sites offer ‘potential’ customers, none of these canassure a ‘confirmed’ customer base before business launchto their subscribers (who have all that it takes to start an onlinebusiness but are skeptic about its success)
While there are several organized avenues such as angel investor and venture capital networks that facilitate business initiation and operation by matching investors and entrepreneurs, these do not fit the requirement of starting an e-commerce business for a variety of reasons such as the scale in which they operate, additional requirements of an e-commerce business and the very nature of e-commerce businesses, etc. For this reason, e-commerce entrepreneurs often turn to family members or friends to provide capital or to acquaintances of family members and friends. Although there are opportunities for various parties equipped with different skills and resources to benefit from a mutual business relationship, there are limited opportunities for them to find each other. There is a need for a computerized system and method:                a) that facilitates the process of starting and operating an online business by matching various parties equipped with different skills and resources;        b) that assists an entrepreneur with a business plan or an investor with resources in completing a variety of activities and tasks related to starting an online business;        c) that supports the location and engagement of individuals and other service providers that can assist the business initiator in starting an online business;        d) that facilitates the acquisition of funding and services for the development and operation of an online business; and        e) that compensates parties according to their contributions to an online business and that facilitates the distribution of compensation.        
Customers have always been considered external entities to the business (e-commerce or otherwise) itself though their contribution to the business success, just by being who they are—customers—is not trivial. The concept of Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) addresses this concern to an extent by making customers stakeholders in business success but, of course, this comes with a rigid set of rules by MLM participants. While there are several inventions in the field of MLM, all of these are aimed at addressing concerns of the companies that adopt MLM approach in terms of sustaining consumer motivation to participate in the program or providing near equal opportunity to all the consumers etc. The rules aspect of MLM from a customer perspective is an under researched field, if not untouched.
With the tremendous advancement of computer and internet technologies and profound penetration of the personal computer in today's world, there are several ways an average online consumer could provide value additions to online business entities they are interested in and get compensated in return. At the same time and for the same reason, one of the major challenges faced by online business entities is ‘noticiability’ on internet. At present, there is no consistent platform that brings both businesses and consumers to the table and lets consumers fully tap the advantages offered by technological advancements while filling in the requirement of businesses to acquire market noticiability.
Thus, there is also a need for a computerized online marketplace                a) that is consumer-centric where subscribers/customers are provided the flexibility to choose how to participate in an MLM-like program;        b) that integrates business customers with the process of business initiation and operation;        c) that acts as a neutral platform for online businesses and their customers to interact for mutual benefit;        d) that enables online businesses to induce their customers to provide required inputs for business growth as well as lets the customers provide these inputs; and        e) that has the capability of aggregating the individual customer investments for the benefit of the businesses and has a method in place to compensate the customers for their investments.        